Nightlife is active around the hotel throughout the night. It is a good thing I usually sleep well but occasionally I wake up and wonder who is out there being entertained by those who earn their living that way. When I get up early in the morning there are always a few stragglers down below, night creatures who appear to dissolve in daylight, then re-appear when it gets dark.
Yesterday we spent the entire day practicing how to monitor and evaluate the leadership work. We use real life examples of leadership-driven change projects that we have gathered over the years. I think it was an eye opener for our new facilitators who are more used to focus on individual transformational work – good work that is notoriously weak in showing anything tangible as a result.
Today they get to practice sessions that they will do for real on Friday when we are really launching our program with what we call a senior alignment meeting, an attempt to get the bosses on board – at least the ones that show up (something we have no control over).
It has been raining ever since we arrived and were told to have brought luck (i.e. rain) with us. The rains are like monsoons and drench the city, leaving huge puddles wherever the roads are not paved and overwhelm the drainage on paved roads. As a result the electricity goes on and off, a problem that everyone seems to take in stride and which shows up in poor internet connections and the inability of restaurants to produce pizzas.
My longtime friend Youssouf from Burkina also showed up in Addis, even staying in our hotel. Liz now is the only non French speaker. Occasionally we slip into French and Liz gets to experience a little bit of the total immersion that she will throw herself in when she comes back to the US and heads to Dartmouth for a 10-day French intensive course. Youssouf and Pierre Marie know each other of course. In their company I experience that special ‘je ne sais quoi’ that makes working in Francophone Africa (something I have not done for a long time) so wonderfully appealing.
Sylvia's Journal 
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